Revelation 11:9-11 - Terror struck those who saw them

11:9,10

The three and a half days ties in with three and half years. Remember that the great multitude came from “every people, tribe, language and tongue”, so do the people who gazed upon the bodies of the dead witnesses. And they gloated over the death of them, celebrating by sending each other presents. It is like Christmas! So there is a great divide. There is a divide between those who worship God and those who hate Him. There is also a great divide between those who once hated Him, but then repented and believed. Can this gloating happen? The answer is yes, for we see hints of it around the world. In countries where people are rejected if they renounce Islam or Hinduism and follow Christ ths sort of thing can happen. In the West we are getting close to it. Witness the “celebrations'' when laws are passed to make it easier to abort human life.

11:11

“After three and a half days the breath of life from God entered them”. The witnesses, the church, were not dead forever. They stood on their feet, and the world was terrified. We can see a pattern here of how things should go with the church. The church bears witness. The world reacts against it and oppresses the church, with varying degrees of ferocity. It looks like the church is dead, but it isn't, and it rises again. If we take the symbolic line, as I tend to do, this is giving the hearers some understanding of how things go. If we are in the stage where the church is a powerful witness, we must know that a time may come when there is severe opposition. If we are in the midst of the severe opposition stage, even the “defeated” stage, we need to know that the church will rise again.

Daniel 4:20-30 - Renounce your sins

4:20-27

Daniel now outlines the meaning of the dream, and it essentially means the king is going to lose his mind and act like an animal. This was not the sort of message that one would like to give to a king, it could well mean that the king would kill you! The magnificent tree represented the king himself. The great power of the king was the good news! Then comes the bad news. The king will be driven away from the people and will live like a wild animal. He would even eat grass like the ox! This state of affairs would continue until the king acknowledged that the Lord is sovereign over all the nations. So God is dealing with the pride of the king. However, it was not all bad news. The kingdom would be restored to the king once he did acknowledge who the Lord is.  Daniel then gives advice to the king: “renounce your sins”. Daniel genuinely spoke “truth to power”. 

4:28-30

All the things foretold in the dream came to pass. One might have thought that he could have heeded the warning and so changed his ways and avoided the humiliation, but human nature is not like that. Sin is a very powerful driving force. Even knowing the consequences, we will still follow its deceptive paths.  So here we read of the king boasting about the greatness of Babylon and how it was he who built it, and all for his power and glory. Pride is a very powerful force.

Revelation 11:7,8 - Their bodies will lie in the public square

11:7

Just in case you thought that the previous verse meant that we could zap all our enemies like a superhero, any such notion is quickly disabused. For now the beast comes up from the Abyss, attacks, overpowers and kills the witnesses! Dan 7:21 talks about the horn waging war against God’s holy people and defeating them. The Bible teaches that God’s people do have power, but also teaches that we will suffer, sometimes terribly. We need to take a multi-dimensional view, taking account of all the teaching of Scripture. 

11:8

The bodies of the dead witnesses will be left to lie in the public square. In the Middle East great store was set on burying the dead quickly. No doubt this was partly because of health reasons, with the heat leading to quick decay. However, this was also incorporated into religious teaching as well. The great city has sometimes been identified with Jerusalem for the obvious reason that that is where Jesus was crucified. However, it also says that figuratively it was called “Sodom and Egypt”. So there should perhaps be a more general interpretation, and it is essentially referring to the world. Now this includes Jerusalem. The way I see the Bible is that Israel is a microcosm of the world. So what happens with Israel and how it is portrayed is how the whole world goes. So Israel is hopelessly sinful and rebellious, the whole world is hopelessly sinful and rebellious. God saves Israel, He will save people from the whole world (not universalism!).

Daniel 4:17-19 - Daniel was greatly perplexed

4:17

The king seems to know that the message came from the Most High, and he wanted the people to know about it. Too often we make judgements on people, making our assessment of how likely or unlikely they are to come to know Christ. We need to realise that our judgements in these matters are virtually worthless! God is God! He can encounter anyone He likes, and when anyone encounters the living God they are going to be changed. Nebuchadnezzar realises that God is sovereign over all the kingdoms of the earth, and it is He who decides who has power and who does not.

4:18

So the king has told Daniel his dream. Here he addresses Daniel by his Babylonian name, Belteshazzar. The various wise men had failed to interpret it, but he knows tha Daniel can, “because the spirit of the holy gods” was in him.

4:19

Daniel obviously had received some insight into the dream and he didn’t like what God had shown him. “His thoughts terrified him”. Living by faith and walking in step with the Spirit does not mean that we will never be terrified by our thoughts. Apparently the king noticed that Daniel was not happy, and so he reassured Daniel. Help and support can come from the most unlikely sources! Why should a pagan king be of help to a faithful man in seeking to do the will of God? But he was. Daniel was terrified because the consequences of the dream were not good for the king.

Revelation 11:4-6 - They have power to shut up the heavens

11:4,5

The olive trees are a reference to Zech 4. Zech 4:14 says ‘These are the two who are anointed to serve the Lord of all the earth.’ It does seem best to take them as being the church, otherwise it seems to be too limiting. “If anyone tries to harm them ...”. Frequently people do try to harm them, as was happening in John’s day, and happens today, but this is not without consequences. For if someone does try to harm them fire comes out of their mouths and devours their enemies”, and this is how those who try to harm them will die. Now this is not the picture of the church that we usually have, but there are important lessons for us. The first is that we must not compromise with the world, even though sadly much of the church seems so keen to do this. The second is that we must take these verses on board, but along with the rest of Scripture, and the rest of Revelation. Only then will we fulfill the proper role that God has for us. Finally, we must not give into fear. It is our enemies who will ultimately suffer.

11:6

This is not a picture of the “nice little Christian”! Rather it harks back to Elijah who seemed to be able to control the weather (1 Kings 17:1; James 5:17), and to Moses who sent various plagues on Egypt. God gives power to His servants. Now, of course, we do not want to go off the deep end here and become loony Christians. We must also remember that these words were given to John who was in exile, and to a church that was weak, in human terms, and that the book is largely symbolic.  But what we must do is remember that in the face of powerful oppression a faithful church is not weak. We do not fight with the weapons of the world, but with divine power (2 Cor 10:3-6).

Daniel 4:10-16 - Let him be drenched

4:10-15a

So the king tells Daniel his dream. He saw a tree of enormous height in middle of the land. It grew even larger and could be seen from everywhere. It was beautiful and fruitful and all the creatures and birds came to it for food. They were also sheltered by it. So all is looking good, but then a messenger from heaven came down and declared that the tree was to be cut down and its branches stripped, and its fruit scattered. The animals and birds that sheltered under it were to be scattered. However, a stump and its roots were to be left in the ground. 

4:15b-16

Then came the words “Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven ..” He was to love among the animals and the plants. His mind was to be changed from that of a man to that of an animal “till seven times (or years) pass by him”. This is a form of madness.

Revelation 11:1-3 - I will appoint two witnesses

11:1,2

This is the central chapter of Revelation. There are some who think it was a later addition to the book, but there isn’t much evidence for this, and it fits in well with the whole book. The chapter begins with John being told to go and measure the temple of God. Back in Zech 2:4 the man with a measuring rod is told the city will be a city without walls. There are numerous debates about the precise meaning of the chapter, partly hinging on whether one wants to identify the two witnesses as specific people, or as seeing it all as symbolic. The symbolic route makes the interpretation much less problematic. John is told not to measure the outer court, for “it has been given to the Gentiles”. “They will trample the holy city for 42 months”. The 42 months comes from Daniel with his “time, times and half a time” (three and a half years). Daniel and Revelation make it clear that there are times when God allows the world to have its way with His people and His city.

11:3

“I will appoint my two witnesses”. They would prophesy for 1260 days (three and a half years), dressed in sackcloth. Two is probably chosen because the Law demanded two witnesses to establish a case. There was Jewish tradition that Elijah and Enoch would return, because neither of them actually died. Moses and Elijah are another suggestion. Then there is the suggestion that they are symbolic. The people of God are to present a witness to the world. We are not here to comfort the world so much, as to present the word of God to the world. When we fail to do so, and especially when we choose to go along with the world’s ways, we are not fulfilling our God given task.